Quiz - Who Is This Famous FL Player?

[OldSchoolLion]

He played high school football on a state championship team from Jacksonville.  He played college ball at a Florida university and later became a star in the NFL.  In addition to his football prowess, he also won an Olympic sprinting medal.   

Who is it?

[DisabledAccount]

23 minutes ago, OldSchoolLion said:

He played high school football on a state championship team from Jacksonville.  He played college ball at a Florida university and later became a star in the NFL.  In addition to his football prowess, he also won an Olympic sprinting medal.   

Who is it?

Bullet Bob Hayes 

[OldSchoolLion]

Columbia got it!  It is Bullet Bob Hayes, the only athlete to ever win an Olympic gold medal AND a super bowl ring.   Hayes is believed by many to be the fastest athlete to ever play in the NFL, if not the fastest man to ever walk the Earth.  The fastest player ever from the state of Florida played 60 years ago!

Hayes played on the 1958 Matthew Gilbert Panthers, who went 11-0 and outscored opponents 254-43 en route to winning Florida's first Black state championship.   Hayes and Gilbert defeated Fort Lauderdale Dillard 14-7 in the championship game.  That team was coached by Earl Kitchings, who later became the first coach at Raines in 1965.

Hayes then played for Florida A&M and went on to become a Pro-Bowler for the Dallas Cowboys, where he was a wide receiver and punt returner.  He is a member of the NFL Hall of Fame and some of his Cowboy records still stand today.    

 http://www.profootballhof.com/players/bob-hayes/biography/

At the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, a 21 year-old Hayes won a gold medal in the 100 meters and the 4X100 meter relay.  Hayes ran a 10.0 100 meter dash in lane 1 of an old cinder track wearing socks and a pair of borrowed shoes that didn't fit.  Previous events had left lane 1 in terrible condition.  The difference between these conditions and those of today's synthetic tracks is astounding.  Many believe his anchor leg in the relay to be the fastest ever with a running start.  He was hand-timed in 8.5 seconds, and many believe his time would have been anywhere between 8.4 and 8.6 if it had been electronically timed.  For perspective, Usain Bolt's fastest relay split ever was an 8.7.  And Hayes did it on an old cinder track!   Hayes never raced again after the Olympics and many wonder what he could have done had he focused on track rather than football.

 

 

 

[DarterBlue2]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolLion said:

Columbia got it!  It is Bullet Bob Hayes, the only athlete to ever win an Olympic gold medal AND a super bowl ring.   Hayes is believed by many to be the fastest athlete to ever play in the NFL, if not the fastest man to ever walk the Earth.  The fastest player ever from the state of Florida played 60 years ago!

Hayes played on the 1958 Matthew Gilbert Panthers, who went 11-0 and outscored opponents 254-43 en route to winning Florida's first Black state championship.   Hayes and Gilbert defeated Fort Lauderdale Dillard 14-7 in the championship game.  That team was coached by Earl Kitchings, who later became the first coach at Raines in 1965.

Hayes then played for Florida A&M and went on to become a Pro-Bowler for the Dallas Cowboys, where he was a wide receiver and punt returner.  He is a member of the NFL Hall of Fame and some of his Cowboy records still stand today.    

 http://www.profootballhof.com/players/bob-hayes/biography/

At the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, a 21 year-old Hayes won a gold medal in the 100 meters and the 4X100 meter relay.  Hayes ran a 10.0 100 meter dash in lane 1 of an old cinder track wearing socks and a pair of borrowed shoes that didn't fit.  Previous events had left lane 1 in terrible condition.  The difference between these conditions and those of today's synthetic tracks is astounding.  Many believe his anchor leg in the relay to be the fastest ever with a running start.  He was hand-timed in 8.5 seconds, and many believe his time would have been anywhere between 8.4 and 8.6 if it had been electronically timed.  For perspective, Usain Bolt's fastest relay split ever was an 8.7.  And Hayes did it on an old cinder track!   Hayes never raced again after the Olympics and many wonder what he could have done had he focused on track rather than football.

 

 

 

Hayes was fast, no doubt. But he would not have beaten Bolt at his best. The way Bolt toyed with the competition in both the 100 and 200 in 2008 and the World's the following year has never been seen and probably will never be seen again. 

[OldSchoolLion]

37 minutes ago, DarterBlue2 said:

Hayes was fast, no doubt. But he would not have beaten Bolt at his best. The way Bolt toyed with the competition in both the 100 and 200 in 2008 and the World's the following year has never been seen and probably will never be seen again. 

There are a lot of opinions on the internet about this.   It is difficult to compare a Jesse Owens or Bob Hayes to Bolt because training, diet and facilities today are so much better.  ...and then there is doping.

...one way to look at it.    Jesse Owens, Bob Hayes and Usain Bolt were each shocking for their time.  Jesse Owens set 3 world records in one meet while in college.  Hayes in 1964 and Bolt in 2008 each won their 100m races by a margin of about 0.2 seconds, which is huge at that level of competition.

 

 

     

[DarterBlue2]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolLion said:

There are a lot of opinions on the internet about this.   It is difficult to compare a Jesse Owens or Bob Hayes to Bolt because training, diet and facilities today are so much better.  ...and then there is doping.

...one way to look at it.    Jesse Owens, Bob Hayes and Usain Bolt were each shocking for their time.  Jesse Owens set 3 world records in one meet while in college.  Hayes in 1964 and Bolt in 2008 each won their 100m races by a margin of about 0.2 seconds, which is huge at that level of competition.

 

 

     

1. Yes, doping has taken on a much more prominent role than it did back in the early 1960s. Maybe though it just was not detected then. And, regarding Bolt, to date, none of his races in which he was tested have come back positive for any illegal substance. So for now, let's presume he is innocent, as I am sure he was tested a lot over his career.

2. Yes, each won by large margins. But if you watch Bolt's victory in Beijing, it was facile. Twenty meters out, he was looking back at the competition and beating his chest. Who knows what his time and margin of victory would have been if he had run through to the tape?' He looked, in that race, like a world class athlete running against a bunch of schoolboys; it was that dominating. 

[OldSchoolLion]

5 hours ago, DarterBlue2 said:

1. Yes, doping has taken on a much more prominent role than it did back in the early 1960s. Maybe though it just was not detected then. And, regarding Bolt, to date, none of his races in which he was tested have come back positive for any illegal substance. So for now, let's presume he is innocent, as I am sure he was tested a lot over his career.

2. Yes, each won by large margins. But if you watch Bolt's victory in Beijing, it was facile. Twenty meters out, he was looking back at the competition and beating his chest. Who knows what his time and margin of victory would have been if he had run through to the tape?' He looked, in that race, like a world class athlete running against a bunch of schoolboys; it was that dominating. 

Appreciate the thoughts.  Bolt was a phenomenal sprinter.   This is an interesting article about Bolt's meteoric rise.   

https://medium.com/@tomnew/usain-bolt-lance-armstrong-and-the-duck-test-303b7b891e7e

For an elite-level 100m sprinter to drop his time 0.34 seconds in 1 year and make a mockery of an Olympic race normally decided by thousands of a second...most would agree Michael Phelps was the most dominant Olympian in history.  I never recall him being so dominant he could coast and have fun at the end of his races.  He was never that far ahead of his competition.

 

 

[DarterBlue2]

7 hours ago, OldSchoolLion said:

Appreciate the thoughts.  Bolt was a phenomenal sprinter.   This is an interesting article about Bolt's meteoric rise.   

https://medium.com/@tomnew/usain-bolt-lance-armstrong-and-the-duck-test-303b7b891e7e

For an elite-level 100m sprinter to drop his time 0.34 seconds in 1 year and make a mockery of an Olympic race normally decided by thousands of a second...most would agree Michael Phelps was the most dominant Olympian in history.  I never recall him being so dominant he could coast and have fun at the end of his races.  He was never that far ahead of his competition.

 

 

I read the story. To me it reflects jealousy and a one sided view of things. A fairly high percentage of the athletes cited from Jamaica were found to have doped on things often sold over the counter and/or included in prescription medications. Many of these athletes claimed to not know that the ingredients of same had banned substances in them. Yes, some of the others no doubt took performance enhancing, banned substances willfully. 

Be the above as it may, why then has Usain Bolt never tested positive? It is possible but not likely he took a substance not detectable at the time of his races. I say not likely as Jamaica is a small, third world country and Bolt has spent his entire career training there. And all his coaches have been Jamaican.  Such cutting edge pharmaceuticals usually come out of advanced industrial countries.  

Until proven otherwise, I believe Usain Bolt was just a freak of nature that happened to represent a country that has always produced more than its per capita share of world class sprinters. This began with the 1952, Olympics in Finland, long before the sport was tainted by the use  of illegal substances, and has continued almost unabated since. 

[“PANTHER NATION(CODE BLUE)]

Hmmm interesting 

[OldSchoolLion]

1 hour ago, "PANTHER NATiON" (WE HERE) said:

Hmmm interesting 

...amazing article about the Dillard vs Matthew Gilbert game.  I read somewhere that over 10,000 people attended.  We normally cannot get anywhere near that to attend a title game now, and it was much harder to get around back then. 

http://thewestsidegazette.com/big-nine-reunion-breakfast-honors-jacksonvilles-mathew-w-gilbert-high-panthers-fort-lauderdales-dillard-high-panthers/